Chameleons Are Cool: Read and Wonder

Read and Wonder

by Martin Jenkins, Sue Shields (Illustrator)

The ability to change color, a sharp-shooting tongue, and skin covering your eyes — now that is cool.

Read and Wonder books tell stories, take children on adventures, and reveal how big and WONDER-full the natural world really is. Back matter includes an index.

Genres: Picture Books, Nonfiction, Animals, Childrens, Science

32 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Martin Jenkins, a conservation biologist, has written several nonfiction books for children, including Ape, Grandma Elephant’s in Charge, The Emperor’s Egg, and Chameleons Are Cool. He lives in Cambridge, England.

Reviews

[Seung Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love these read-and-wonder books. They really make you wonder about the things around you. Perfect for my kid.

[Kayla · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not in story form; it is more informational, telling all about Chameleons. The illustrations in this book are amazing. It gives a lot of information about these animals. I would use this book during science to introduce or aid in teaching about Tropical climates.

[Claire Ferrell]

This book is about Chameleons, which are lizards and reptiles. There are thousands of kinds of lizards, 120 of those are chameleons. Chameleons come from Madagascar which is an island off of Africa, other chameleons live in Africa. The biggest chameleon is the size of a small cat, the smallest can balance on your finger. Chameleons have large eyes, wrinkly skin, and strange noses. Chameleon's usually look grumpy because they are. Chameleon's change color only when they are angry, too hot or cold, or sick. Chameleons only move when they have to, and have feet like pinchers to hold onto branches tightly. Chameleons have extremely long tongues which help them to creep up on bugs and eat them.
I enjoyed this book, the author explained to readers what chameleons do and look like. The illustrations were colorful and helped readers visualize what colors chameleons may be or what some of their features look like.
I would use this book in my classroom when teaching students about reptiles. It could also be used as a book for children to read on their own during independent reading time.

[Natalie Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chameleons Are Cool is a nonfiction book about chameleons and a bunch of cool facts about them. For example, a chameleon's eyes can move in two different directions. The end of the book concludes by saying that if chameleons aren't cool, they. aren't sure what is.

I like this book. It gets dry at points but overall, it was well-written and very informative. It has nice illustrations that make it super fun to learn about chameleons. The book also has nice onomatopoeias and easy words that make it simple for kids to read.

I will use this as a nonfiction book in my classroom. It would be interesting to do a small project where the students pick an animal and do a poster on it. Books like this would be good to use for this. I will also use this in my classroom library.

[Kaylie Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picture Book
This is a fun informational book about chameleons. The illustrations are full of colors, and the voice of the book is from an elementary child which I think is perfect. I would use this during a unit where we are talking about lizards or types of animals. I could also potentially find a bunch of books like this and put them all in a bin for the students to read during their leisure time out of their own interest and desire for discovery.

[Kathleen Vincent]

This is a nonfiction text that teaches about chameleons. When discussing nonfiction, students learn that informational texts generally have real life photographs instead of drawings, but this is a great example to use when showing that it is possible for nonfiction texts to also use illustrations. My students love reading this nonfiction book along with a National Geographic chameleons book entitled Animals that Change Color to compare how the information is organized in each text.

[Mary-Grace Karkau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of cool facts about chameleons and how they live their lives like lizards but differently.

I really liked this book and all of the facts inside. Easy to read and great for 2nd-3rd graders.

I would love to use it as a read-aloud in my class when we're discussing animals. I think it is a book all students would enjoy and would provide them with more knowledge while keeping them interested.

[Brianna Krum]

This book states facts about Chameleons in a way that the younger children can understand. I would use this book in a science class as a way to learn about Chameleons. Then we would label the parts of a Chameleon.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the art work and how it added to the facts learned while reading.

[Lynn Davidson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous educational book about chameleons - very interesting facts and wonderful illustrations. It's a fun read.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written to be read like a story but contains factual information. The summer camp kids enjoyed it

[Hanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a super fun and colorful book that teaches kids all the unique traits of chameleons and what makes them so cool!

[Keegan Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Informational
Grade: PreK-3
Such a cool book to learn more about chameleons and the way they live and work. This book is also a great tool for new readers when learning how to read! I heavily recommend having this in the classroom.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chameleons are coil: rrad and wonder
By martin Jenkins ans sue sheild
A non fiction text that explains the odd 120 species of Chameleons and their remarkable adaptation.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a book selection for the 2nd grade class for Real Men Read.
This book is chock full of interesting facts about chaeleons. The author challenges the reader by pointing out that there are things they think are true about chameleoms that are likely not true.
I used that challenge with my class to tell all the things they thought they knew. Then as we went through the book we checked with we thought against what the author informed us of.

The most astonishing one is that chameleons do not change color to match the background, but instead as a reaction to other chameleons. Who knew!

A good solid book that we were able to use to generate lots of discussion.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great illustrations and a great book to teach your kids about chameleons.

[Melinda Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love the bright, colorful pictures of chameleons, they are entertaining to children of all ages! Did you know that there are about 120 different types of chameleons; half of them come from Madagascar and most of the others live in mainland Africa? You can't keep them for pets because they will get sick and die. Chameleons do change color, but only when they're angry, or when they are too cold or hot or when they're sick. When they see something to eat, they stick out this long, long tongue with a sticky tip.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chameleons Are Cool includes captivating facts about chameleons that children go crazy for! They loved the "funny noses" page and the page with the chameleon's long, sticky tongue reaching out for an insect.

The pages are colorful and interesting, the facts are intriguing and kid-friendly, and I actually learned a lot from it. Apparently, chameleons don't change color according to their surroundings, but according to their mood. The students I read this to absorbed all of these fun facts. Great book! I would recommend to anyone interested in animals or any primary level student!

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

K picked this book up from his school library.

This is a fun read that is perfect for those that like to read about animals, especially just chameleons. We get colorful pictures of different chameleons and what pretty much do. How big they are, how they eat, why they change color and so much more. We read a lot of different things about the chameleons and what makes them cool. There a lot of cool facts that we learn and we both learned something new.

[Jana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun nonfiction picture book that's popular with my students. The text enumerates all of the ways chameleons are cool and also sprinkles interesting facts about other lizards throughout the book. Along with the information, the colorful illustrations, rendered in ink and watercolor, really make this book a classroom favorite. The book has an index at the back, which helps make it useful to a reader looking for particular information.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The subtitle of this book is "Read and Wonder" - and that aptly describes this text. The illustration is so engaging and the way that the facts about the chameleon are presented is so memorable and enjoyable. My son loved learning about these seemingly magical creatures and I loved learning with him. What a neat book!

[Tara]

Good forward introducing chameleons and facts. The book is written as an opinion (the best thing about chameleons), but it is stilled filled with facts. Has facts about other lizards. Smaller font that is all facts. Uses similes to introduce facts/compare to other lizards - uses backwards similes.

[Cassi Dick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book for kids to get real facts about Chameleons. It talks about where they live and goes through the different qualities they have. You can use this book for kids who love to learn about different kinds of animals. This is a good book for the 1st grade level.

[Kaylen Matherly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells all about chameleons and what they can do. This book would be great to read to a class if you were going to do a science lesson on reptiles. It's more of an informational book, but I think it would still keep children's attention.

[Madison Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a neat book! This is a great book for children to learn about chameleons. There are many facts that fill this book, and could be used to supplement a lesson. I would reccomend this book for children in 1st to 3rd grade.

[Rose]

597 Jen

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is ok. I wouldn't care to read it often but my sone enjoyed having it read to him. Some really colorful cartoon like pictures and fun facts about chameleons.

[Cws]

JAROS4-Jen

[Dubovoyalena]

1-5, chameleons, great for teaching animal life. Book is loaded with interesting facts about chameleons. Also have great illustrations

[Kelci Cox-Griswold · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of information about chameleons. It tells about wat they eat, why they change colors, and many other interesting facts. This would be great to use when teaching about reptiles.